The process as to how people in the local fashion industry are initially nominated and then go on to win the award is quite a complex one. For those that wish to read in detail there is actually the entire set of rules & regulations on our website, maltafashionweek.com. However, even so, many tend to question the system and often make their own negative conclusions. So we have come up with a description using laymen terms to create more transparency.

Board of People to Submit Nominations are Chosen

Around November of each year, the Production Committee of The Malta Fashion Awards creates a list of ALL those people who were directly or indirectly involved in the local fashion industry – fashion photographers, bloggers, hair stylists, editors of fashion magazines, advertising & marketing agencies, fashionistas, models & photo-models, & model agencies. From all the names in this list, the board chooses a percentage of them by ballot, those chosen will be sent what is called an ” Authorised nomination Form “.

Those sent this form are asked to list the names in order of preference of those people in each particular sector who in their personal opinion and from their position’s point of view DESERVE to be nominated. This decision is also to be made after considering what these people have done during the past year within the local FASHION INDUSTRY.

It is important to note that those that do receive the list are not allowed to nominate people in their own field of work e.g. a make-up artist cannot nominate another make-up artist. Also, if a person is not competent to vote for a particular sector, that sector will not be available in his form.

Nominations Received

After all forms are collected, names are recorded and points are given to each person mentioned in said forms in each particular sector. For example every 1st preference listed will be considered as 10 points, a second preference will be given 8 points, so on and so forth.  As a further example, if Ms. XYZ in the make-up sector received 2 first votes and 1 second vote she will get a total of 28 points.

A list of names is then created for each sector sorted according to how many points each person received.  There are certain sectors who generally tend to have a long list whilst some others generally have a shorter one. The next step is for the Board to decide to whom a request for CV will be sent. This is based on the number of votes given, a request is sent to the person at the top up and all persons below up until a large gap in votes is found.

For example, if there are 16 names listed, the highest value is 72, the 8th position received 55 and the 9th position received 10, ONLY the first 8 will be considered. Those 8 people will be contacted individually and asked to send a detailed CV of their work done in the past year. This CV should be written within an official form given by the Fashion Awards team. In the case of Models they would also need to mention which Brand they modelled for, on which day, the venue, who was their contact person ( whether direct or through an agency ) and whether they got paid for the job or not. Same goes for all other sector with minor amendments so that the form will be coherent according to the particular sector.

***Apart from the above mentioned nomination process, anyone from the general public can submit his/her own interest to suggest a choice of nominee by filling in the online form. This form is open for a particular period of 2 weeks, during which time it is also advertised on social media. In this case, the number of casted forms for every person WILL NOT BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT. In certain cases, a person will ask all her friends and family members to fill in the form on her behalf, but this will not count towards more points. One form is more than enough, and can even be submitted by the person himself. This process exists so as to be sure no-one is ever be left out in the rare case(s) when our board may have overlooked one or more persons, this particular person will then be asked to submit a CV

CVs Received

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As soon all CV’s are received, the Monitoring Board will evaluate each and everyone of them in detail, removing mentions which do not fall under the rules & regulations. For example, in the case of models, Beauty Contests are not considered, neither are any promotion in supermarkets or for brands which are not fashion related. In the case of photographers, weddings are not considered either.  Each remaining job will be given a weight in points again. For example, a solo fashion show of a particular brand or designer will be given more weight that a fashion show in a beauty contest. A paid job will be given much more weight than a free job.

It is also good to mention that at this stage, if a suspicion of foul play is found in any CV , the board will investigate and send for the prospective nominee, if proof is found, the person concerned will be eliminated with immediate effect  and expelled for a period of 5 years.

The Winner of each Category is chosen.

After all CV’s have been evaluated and passed from what we call it the ” cleaning “, they will be passed to a final board. This board can be composed from those people  in the industry chosen at the start of the process to submit nominations. After the said evaluation, the top 4 or 5 (this depends as to how close in votes they end up), will become the Nominees for their particular sector. There have been times when awards were not given for particular sectors due to lack of work in that particular field.

From then on it will be a matter of discussion. The board delves through each and every person, jobs done and evaluates each detail – professionalism, the job itself, how the jobs were given, the reason behind the job being etc. They will also take into consideration the first set of votes received and also the amount of votes received from their CV. This is the toughest part of the process, as even though many times it will be evident in the initial stages if there are those who  ahead of the rest, there have been cases when two people were so close to each other that a decision was taken after 4 consecutive meetings.

Good to point out that all these discussions and voting are always monitored by a Public Notary or Lawyer or a Person of Trust and these have the right to interfere and take action if they deem fit.

When one sees the system of how it works, it should not be of any surprise that he or she who wins the award will have the probability of winning the next edition, for the simple reason that by winning such an award they will be getting more jobs/work during the year, as many companies use the fashion awards as their medium to appoint people from the fashion industry. However, new rules came into effect stating that a person can only win the same award 3 times ( no need to be in a row), and cannot ever be nominated if the Outstanding Award has been given.

All people involved in the judging system were always kept confidential as Malta is a small island and many knows the many, and knowing that those chosen to vote in a year would probably be chosen the following year, we wanted to avoid having any sort of interference. But such secrecy even though is done for the protection of the final votes, in certain cases raises questions and even suspicion of WHO are the people behind the votes, or some asking whether it’s the Executive Producer himself is the one who decided the nominees and winners.

A change is being done to the system. For the first time ever, the names of all those people involved and their role will be published. What will not be published is the votes of how each person voted individually, this is done to make sure that the votes are being given as fairly and unbiased as possible. Otherwise a person voting will be forced to keep in mind what he can lose or gain if someone sees his votes. All votes are kept anonymous. This will ensure that each award is given to the person who truly deserve it.

If any person has any doubts as to an award decision, he/she can ask the Monitoring Board for an audit of the said process. A Public Notary agreed between the parties, would then be appointed to triple check the votes, recount the votes, and give the confirmation to the person making the query.

All this is being done to protect the image of the local Fashion Industry and to ensure that The Malta Fashion Awards remain the Biggest ever fashion event in Malta. These remain the only awards which have been held yearly without interruption for the past 20 years.

We will continue to award those who really deserve being awarded, based on their quantity and quality of work, and not on the quantity of votes.